Burning Issues, Embodied Protests; Adf Students, Guests and Companies Explore the Dance of Social Protest
Independent Weekly, The; Durham, N.C. › July 31, 2009
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Summary
Speculative, experimental performances such as Gutierrez's make up an important part of the ADF experience for students because they leaven the festival's mainstream main stage offerings each season. Their function as counterbalance is particularly required since the school inexplicably has no input into the festival's main stage selections, although its tuition makes up a significant part of the festival's budget every year, and its dean, Donna Faye Burchfield, is clearly a dance visionary in her own right.
Produced on a shoestring with negligible tech support, concerts like teachers/choreographers Jennifer Nugent and Paul Matteson's earlier showing this year and Ann Livingston Young's memorable American Crane Standards in 2003 demonstrate, at their best, imagination and choreographic achievement equal to or greater than work displayed in main stage shows. They effectively broaden the spectrum of dance for all comers. In practice, they're the ADF's version of a fringe festival.In the first ADF student concert July 16, choreographer Michael Helland's Endless Matter confronted the politics of embodied gender with fewer punchlines--and significantly more courage--than most of Larry Keigwin's lightweight main stage offerings earlier in the season. The choreographer's spare work interrogated the radically divergent meanings the same balletic moves and costumes are given when placed on male and female bodies. In contrast to most of the offerings, the chalky overhead fluorescent lighting actually aided this exploration of socially constructed difference, when its shadows emphasized the gauntness of Helland's half-nude form.See the full content of this document
Extract
Burning Issues, Embodied Protests; Adf Students, Guests and Companies Explore the Dance of Social Protest
There's something about an open flame that just grabs the attention. Particularly when it's applied to unprotected human flesh.
Miguel Gutierrez, a guest choreographer at the ADF School, certainly had the audience's attention before the final sequence of Retrospective Exhibitionist (1st Try), an after-hours one-person show at the Ark on July 11.Speculative, experimental performances such as Gutierrez's make up an important part of the ADF experience for students because they leaven the festival's mainstream main stage offerings each season. Their function as counterbalanc...See the full content of this document
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